Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Some forty odd years ago, the BBC was looking for an early evening family drama to run on Saturday night and bridge the gap between the football scores of "Grandstand" and the popular music panel show "Jukebox Jury". They hit upon a show, the brainchild of Sidney Newman, a science fiction program suitable for the entire family and with a slightly educational bent to it for the kids.

Little did they know what they were unleashing on the world.

That show, of course is Doctor Who. 40 years on, and some 27 seasons worth of shows under its belt (plus countless books, videos, DVDs, comic books, audio dramas, and theatrical movies), Doctor Who is still going strong. But as another science fiction franchise once said "Every journey has a first step". That first step is here, November 23rd, 1963. Thirteen episodes (well, technically fifteen episodes - but I'll get to that in a second), a ton of extras and one boxed set: Doctor Who - The Beginning.

First, let me quickly bring the noobs up to speed on the show

Doctor Who is a show about an alien who travels the universe in a time/space machine called the TARDIS. During The Doctor's travels, he and his companion (usually a young human female with weak ankles) combat evil wherever they find it. Doctor Who can do what James Bond has done several times and swap out the lead roll when the actor retires and wants to leave the roll. So over the course of the last 40 years there have been several Doctors with different faces, but all the same character. Of course at this time, we didn’t know any of this - most of these developments came about as a natural organic evolution from necessity much later on. For now, all we have are two teachers, a sinister old man and a naive young girl lost in time and space. . . .

An Unearthly Child
The first story is An Unearthly Child, where we meet the Doctor and his mysterious granddaughter Susan. Much like the 2005 relaunch of the program, instead of introducing the viewers to the main character directly, we get bits and pieces seen through the eyes of two bewildered schoolteachers. The mystery surrounding the Doctor and this strange police box are more tangible here than in any of the following episodes from the next 26 years. Russell T Davies did well to walk in these footsteps when Rose first met the 9th Doctor. It’s an old formula, but it works.

The Doctor, played by William Hartnell, is a crotchety old man who is patronizing, selfish and high handed towards the other two adult leads, almost to the point where you don’t like him. Of course the Doctor develops and grows as the series progresses, softening his hard edge towards the teachers - but for the moment, he's a right bastard. And yet despite that, Hartnell manages to capture that elusive Doctor "magic" right away. He's charismatic and compelling while still being a right bastard.

William Russell as Ian provides the more traditional 'hero' of the episode, clearly out of his depth but strong and decisive. A solid actor, Russell holds his own with the veteran Hartnell - although be frank, he really gets to show off acting chops in the next story with the Daleks. Barbra fairs a bit worse, but I suspect that's because she's weaker written character. No, Jacqueline Hill gets to really shine in the Aztecs but not so much here. And then there's Susan, the otherworldly teenager with the weak ankles and powerful lungs. If there's a weak link in the cast, then poor old Carole Ann Ford would be it. She's not bad, she's just average.

While the first part of this four part adventure is mysterious and compelling and electrifying, the other three parts are not so thrilling. While it does have some interesting counterpoints - to the intelligent and futuristic Doctor and Susan, Ian and Barbra are primitive savages, while the two schoolteachers are the intelligent 'aliens' to the primitive cavemen - the capture, escape and peril of the Tardis crew at the hands of the cavemen is really a mess. The rest of the episode would be exceptionally disappointing if not for the dynamic of the main cast. The performances from them really save the day and carry the show.

All in all, the episode overcame its weaknesses and delivered what it needed to, a solid starting point and laying the groundwork for the remainder of the season yet to come.

The Daleks
"No bug eyed monsters! This is a serious drama!" demanded Sidney Newman at the start of production. And then the Daleks appeared and nothing was ever the same again.

Now what do I say about the Daleks - more iconic than the police box, more popular than the Beatles, and the most enduring bad guys this side of Professor Moriarty. So popular they were that they cemented the Doctor's place in television history for the next four decades and turned Doctor Who into a world wide phenomenon.

While the story takes a couple of episodes to really get going (from part 3 onwards, the momentum doesn’t let up. The Doctor is still a right bastard - which really takes getting used to - as he endangers the rest of our heroes to satisfy his curiosity about the 'dead' city. Ian and Barbra are in fine form (William Russell in particular getting some fine scenes with the Thalls towards part five), but poor old Susan, stuck in a whiny teenager rut. It's small wonder why Carol Ann Ford wanted to get out of her contract as soon as possible. However without a doubt, The Daleks are the centerpiece of the story. Up to that point, nothing like them had been seen before on television and they dominate every scene they are in. Even now, 40 years on and episodes like The Parting of Ways, the old school Daleks have power over the imagination.

The Edge of Destruction
A story borne out of necessity - the scripts past "The Daleks" were not yet completed and the show's budget had gotten out of control. The production team could either briefly shut down production on the show or quickly throw together two episodes using only the main characters and the one standing set: the Tardis to buy them some time. And from these emergency measures, came an episode just as important as "An Unearthly Child" and "The Daleks".

I say important not because of the money saved or padding between episodes (tho those were important too), but because it was a major step in the evolution of the program. Much like Boomtown from the 2005 season, The Edge of Destruction allows us to step back and take a breather, assess where we are at and allow more depth to the characters. It’s a significant step in the mythology of the show, establishing that the Doctor and Susan have a much broader back story than we know. It shows that there is far more to the Tardis than just a simple machine. The episode is a turning point in the relationship of the main cast goes from unwanted annoyances and unwilling travelers to a group of friends, and most importantly, it’s the beginning of The Doctor's change from a curmudgeonly old man to the charming and loveable grandfather figure.

Barbra too begins to shed her roll as the screaming, frightened woman with weak ankles that we saw on stone-age Earth and on Skaro. Now she shows intelligence, strength and conviction that will stay with her throughout the rest of her run.

There are flaws with the story - sadly Susan never rises above the hysterical teenager roll, and the plot isn’t explained as well as it could be. Why are all the characters acting strangely? These days we know that the Tardis is telepathic and could have been prompting this odd behavior as a warning, but back then there was no evidence of that.

Despite its flaws and budgetary constraints, despite featuring no alien menaces. The end result is quite good and sets the stage for the remainder of the season.

THE VIDEO -
Again, the Restoration Team delivers the goods with a sharp, slick looking package. These episodes look as good as they did when they were first broadcast 40 years ago. Anyone who doubts the problems that plague old shows only has to watch "The Masters of Sound" on disc three to have their eyes opened. The brief clip of the Daleks uses the unrestored masters, and is riddled with dropouts and scratches - and the clip is only a few seconds long!

There is a problem with the very last episode of The Daleks, however. There is a very faint scratch down the right side of the screen for the majority of the episode. According to Steve Roberts of the Restoration Team, this was a flaw on the source material that was impossible to clean up all the way. They did the best they could, but the scratch is still noticeable to the untrained eye. Unfortunate, but ultimately not distracting from the episode.

The audio has been extensively repaired too. Portions of lines, lost from editing glitches have been restored. Audio/visual cues have been synced up again, and accidental studio background noises have been minimized. This is showcased best in The Edge of Destruction, where large sections of the story are played out within a mostly silent studio. With no dialogue, music or sound effects, every little blemish and flaw in the soundtrack is magnified. While painstakingly removing these audio problems (by hand no less) took days, the end result is stunning.

THE EXTRAS -
Any other Television show DVD set should be green with envy from the package that Steve Roberts and the Restoration Team has put together. The wealth of riches begins with five new documentaries, spread across the three discs.

For starters, "Doctor Who: Origins" is the cornerstone of the set, a 54 minute documentary that tells the story of Doctor Who from the first conception as a vague outline of a new science fiction show for Saturday tea-time through to the transmission of the very first story. The story is told through interviews with the production team (and a rare archive interview with Sidney Newman), and the original production documents held by the BBC. It’s a fascinating and frank look at the early days of the show, and how it almost didn’t come together.

Next up is "Creation of the Daleks", a 17 minute documentary looking at the genesis of the monsters which would quickly become the Doctor's worse foes and England's biggest obsession.

Then, the 30 minute documentary 'Over the Edge' takes an in-depth look at the production of 'The Edge of Destruction', and the story's influence on the show for the remainder of the run. While "Inside the Spaceship" looks specifically at the Tardis through the eyes of the cast and crew.

Finally 'Masters of Sound' is a 13 minute series of interviews with Dick Mills, Brian Hodgson, Verity Lambert and Delia Derbyshire focused on the show's haunting theme music.

Four short comedy sketches, originally produced for the BBC's Doctor Who night back in 1999, are included on the first disc. While "The Pitch of Fear" is most thematically appropriate for the set, the best one of the bunch is "The Kidnappers", where two eager Doctor Who fanboys kidnap Peter Davison and hilarity ensues.

Also on disc one, the Restoration Team's sound/music guy Mark Ayres included a music video (well, the extended opening titles) with a Dolby digital 5.1 remix of the classic Ron Grainer theme.

At the start, I said that the set was 13 episodes long - which isn’t quite true. Also included are two versions of the "pilot" episode of An Unearthly Child. Produced first, it was realized that the tone and characterization of the Doctor was all wrong, prompting the decision to mount a reshoot. The differences between the pilot and the broadcast episode are subtle but strong. If you think the Doctor is a right bastard now, you should see him before they softened the character. The second version of the pilot is the raw, unedited version where the Tardis doors wouldn’t close and other technical difficulties abounded, including the second take for the last half of the program.

The last episode included with the set is Marco Polo, the story directly following the Edge of Destruction. Marco Polo was one of the unfortunate victims of the BBC's policy to destroy their broadcast masters in the late 60's, and no longer exists in the archives. Feeling that Marco Polo was an important part of Doctor Who's early history, the Team edited the seven part story down to 31 minutes and reconstructed the story using a fan recorded soundtrack from 1964 and a series of production photos taken on-set. While the show is an abbreviated version, it's a tantalizing glimpse into a show lost to us forever.

Of course, there are commentaries with the series first producer Verity Lambert and director Waris Hussein, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, director Christopher Barry and director Richard Martin, all moderated by Gary Russell. Verity and William are fun commentators to listen to, always a pleasure to have them included on a DVD. While budgetary constraints allowed only six of the thirteen episodes to carry commentaries, this isn’t a bad thing. I don’t think that even a die hard Whovian (lord how I hate that word) would be able to talk about the show for 7 hours straight. So the commentaries remain fresh and lively.

Rounding out the package are three photo galleries, with the third including pictures from 'Marco Polo' as well as 'The Edge of Destruction'. PDF documents containing the original show listings from the Radio Times, plus the complete original script for the An Unearthly Child pilot are included.

THE LAST WORD
For a show beset by problems from the get go - unsupportive production departments within the BBC, cost overruns that nearly canceled the show, the Kennedy assignation that pre-empted the premiere of the series, a broadcasting outage that severely cut into the viewing figures - it's amazing that Doctor Who lasted a year, let alone 26 of them. Still, it was the Little Show That Could, defying the odds and remaining with us all this time. If wowing modern audiences with Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant is not proof enough that the show has legs, then this set should settle the matter once and for all.

Packed with gripping episodes, a bounty of extras and lovingly restored, if you want a jumping on point for Doctor Who, you could do much worse than this.

Here's to the next 40 years.

OTHER DOCTOR WHO EPISODES ON DVD:

DOCTOR ONE -
* The Beginning * Doctor Who and the Daleks * The Aztecs * The Dalek Invasion of Earth * Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. * The Web Planet * The Lost in Time Collection *

DOCTOR TWO -
* Tomb of the Cybermen * The Seeds of Death * The Mind Robber * The Invasion *

DOCTOR THREE -
* Spearhead From Space * Doctor Who and the Silurians * The Sea Devils * The Three Doctors * Carnival of Monsters*

DOCTOR FOUR -
* The Ark in Space * Genesis of the Daleks * The Pyramids of Mars * The Robots of Death * The Talons of Weng-Chiang *
Destiny of the Daleks *

DOCTOR FIVE -
* Earthshock * Time-Flight * The Five Doctors * Warriors of the Deep * Resurrection of the Daleks * The Caves of Androzani*

DOCTOR SIX -
* Vengeance on Varos * Timelash * Revelation of the Daleks *

DOCTOR SEVEN -
* Rememberance of the Daleks * The Television Movie*

THE NEW SERIES -
* Doctor Who - Series One * Doctor Who - Series Two * Torchwood - Series One * Doctor Who - Series Three * The Infinite Quest*


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4